Pauls Rants & Revelations

So today is my friend Peggy’s 29th birthday. She was a little bummed because none of her friends were getting back to her about festivities for the evening. So it’s Paul to the rescue! Also, you can drop a comment on her myspace page if you feel so inclined.

Were going to meet up with a few friends who finally for back to her and go bar hopping in Portland.

She sounds a little down with being almost thirty, so maybe a night of drinking and kareoke will cheer her up.

- Cheers

Update: a picture of the birthday girl.

You know, I really don’t mind taking care of my responsibilities. Family stuff, take out the trash, do the dishes, polish the weapons, all that is fine. However there is one task that I really, really despise.

Giving the cat a bath.

For those of you without the scars from claws, this is not as easy a task as you think. You fear holding the kitty tighter cause its so small in your hands and at the some time you want to squash it into a jelly mold just so it would sit still long enough for you to get the overpriced pet shampoo on it (and let sit for 4-6 minutes).

Anyways, Tom, our cat, is never happy about it. And every bathing he gives me a few good scratches to let me know so. The least I can do asuage my pain is to post pictures of our wet cat. They are funny to look at and I get a sense of fulfilled revenge, even though Tom doesn’t give a shit (and will possibly take one in my shoes later).

- Cheers

For those of you who don’t know, I am in a medieval renactment group called the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). In it, we do all kinds of things that some people think are weird. But we also fight.

And not like play fighting, like with broom sticks (although that is allowed). We fight with rattans, swords, seige engines, and we have wars and battles and the whole nine.

We also have archery, which is my focus in the society. I’ve been doing it for about 5 years now and its been great fun. Although this weekend, I had a not wholly unexpected turn of events. This weekend was an event called Acorn War (and yes, there were 60 or so people on a war field beating the crap out of each other; it was great fun). Also during the event, there was a tournament to see who will be the next defender of the area know in the society as Mountains Edge.

The tournament took all day Saturday and consisted of many different types of shoots, but in the end I emerged victorious! I had the highest cumulative score and the highest number of shoots won so I won two ways. There were about 15 others shooting for the defendership also but I beat them all!

What does this mean, you ask? Basically, I have to stand in court behind the Mt Edge seneshal (the leader of the area) and look intimidating next to the heavy defender, equestrian defender, A&S defender, and bardic defender. That, and I get free admission to Mt Edge events (bonus).

So, that was my weekend. What did you do?

- Cheers

Sorry for the lack of posts in recent weeks. I’ve been busy with work and with going to SCA events all summer so my posts are rather sporatic.

Anyways, things are starting to calm down again so I can start posting more regularly since there are lots of new developmenrs on all fronts in the chaos that is my existence.

Stay tuned!

-Cheers

Since my wife works at Nike (bonus) she gets access to all these really nifty things. Yes, she gets cool clothes and shoes and such, but mostly its the Nike events we like.

And so it happens we have a very energetic 6 year old boy and Nike has a Youth Triathlon planned. Convienent timing for sure. We told him about it and he was all fired up to do it.

The race was 2 laps in the olympic size pool, a 1.5 mile bike ride, and a half mile run. I thought this was a lot for a 6 year old but it turns out I was wrong (which often happens when I think). During the pool section he was in the middle of the pack and doing well. He sprinted out to his bike and took a bit longer than I though was needed to change into his shirt and shoes and get going, but he was off in good time.

I didn’t see the bike portion because it went all the way aroung campus but I was there at the second change point to see him off to his run. It was 2 laps around the olympic track (are you spotting a theme here) and on the second lap he kinda half-walked half-strutted, but still did really well (somewhere in the middle i think). They didnt have a first or second place, but each participant got a really nice bronze medal (solid bronze) with the youth games insignia on it.

I can’t say when I’ve been more stoked to be his dad. We were so proud of him I irritated my coworkers when I told them. As a treat (and because we were planning on it) we got him a Nintendo DS since he was asking for like 6 months. All in all it was a great day to be him. Pictures after the jump.

- Cheers

So asod from my categories disappearing, the reason I upgraded was so I can update from my iPhone (this being the first test).
So far, it works pretty well. Except that I may have a stroke from typing a whole entry on this tiny keyboard. But other than that it’s working pretty well.
If I can upload images that would be cool. It says that it’s possible but I’m not sure how yet. If I can figure it out before my rafting trip that would be nifty.
Ok, enough lolly gagging, back to work.

-Cheers

Image test

SO I finally updated my wordpress install from 2.1 to the latest 2.6.

At first I was like “Way Neato!”. Then I realized that all of my categories and link categories were gone. Like, really gone. The only identifying mark was the slug with was a lot of “-2″‘s. So, if some posts seem to be misplaced, this is the reason. I renamed what I could (had to edit the datbase directly to do it) but its sorted now.

Well, at least its working.

I mean, I read the documentation changes for the most part but didnt see any part about your categories fucking getting axed from the update.

Anyways, should you be upgrading, take a snapshot of the data in your wp_categories. This will be invaluable as you can map the IDs so you can rename the items in wp_terms (the new table) so that your categories are correct.

OK. Back to the digital salt mines.

-Cheers

Since I created the ASP Tag Cloud function, a get a few emails a month asking questions about it. Most of the time its folks starting out wondering how to implement it, or some other developers wondering why I used this method instead of others available, and so on.

I usually help out those who ask  for help (hey, we are a community after all) and generally everything is rather nifty. However, one person, Scott, emailed me one day asking about limiting the results to only popular tags and as usual I replied with my ideas on how to do it.

He replied back thanking me and told me the sites he uses it on. I was rather taken aback when he told me that it was he podcasting sites for the US Geological Survey (http://usgs.gov/corecast and http://usgs.gov/corefacts) and that he was creating another image gallery site that also uses my tag cloud function.

And, to those who know me; yes, I patted myself on the back a bit at this news.

Now some people would say “Big deal, my shit’s seen by millions of people every day”. To those blokes, I say “Fecalphelia is a curable disease so seek help”.

For me, though, in my little corner of the internet, I’m quite please to know that someone else uses my code in a useful way on a popular site instead of just cataloging the various tags used on adult sites (yes, I get emailed about this and no, I will not post links to them). The sites its used on are pretty sweet since I visit them on a somewhat irregular basis (hey, I’m no geologist now) and it does make it far easier to find popular articles. Check them out when you get a sec.

Thanks to Scott for letting me know how he uses the function. If you use the function let me know. If you have questions about it it also let me know by comment or email.

-Cheers

P.S. – To all those that tell me that its wrong to steal the bubble sort function, I will email the person in the next cubicle and tell them to hold you head in the toilet until the bubbles stop. I gave credit to them. Please read the code instead of blindly copy/pasting. – Thanks, Paul

So its been like 6 weeks since I made  an entry and I must say I am disappointed in myself. Partly because I cant seem to get a sec to jot something down, but mostly because twitter is so much easier and I can do it from anywhere.

OK, technically, since I got my iPhone, I could blog from anywhere as well, but Twitter is just easier all aroung (hence why I added my Twitter feed to the site).

Anyways, things are starting to calm down somewhat. Its mostly been work and dealing with summer and since schools out that means I have both the kiddies with me all day. Its hard coming up with new things to do. Theres only so many times we can go to the zoo, the park, the fountain, strip clubs, etc. I mean, it gets dull sometimes. If anyone has suggestion please leave a comment.

In other news, my wife and I are going down to Eugene to see the Olympic trials for track and field. Since she works and Nike she got premo tickets and accomodations. The funny thing is that there is a very long list of rules that are going to be enforced; such as specific size of allowed fluid container (no more than 1.5 liters) and bags only so large and clothing requirements and a whole lot more. Its weird but I guess theres a valid reason for it. What it is I have no idea, but there has to be a reason, right?

Anyways, I’m trying to post more so hopefully I can make money again from this thing. That, and provide an outlet for me to rant about whatever I want. Or post sizzling pictures of my favorite female celebs. Or videos of kittens. Whatever.

-Cheers

Today is my little girls birthday. She is now officially 3 years old (versus the 3 to were were saying she was to get a cheaper rate at the day care).

She certainly is taking a liking to girly things too. Everything is pink and Hello Kitty and I really am wondering if I will ever survive such an age. I guess only time will tell.

We went to the sweet park in Portland for a nice b-day picnic which was really quite fun. She got a lot of neat games and clothes and a couple instruments that are sure to drive mom and I crazy. But other than that we had cake and a nice picnic and she had a lot of fun with her brother and cousins.

-Cheers